Card Briefs: Credit Union Unit Gets New Tool to Fight Fraud

CSG Card Services, a for-profit subsidiary of Credit Union National Association Inc., has announced a technological advance in its fight against credit card fraud.

The unit has introduced neural network technology to protect its credit card users. The system, called the Cardholder Risk Identification Service, estimates normal purchase behavior and sends up a red flag for atypical behavior.

It was first offered to its member institutions by Visa U.S.A. in 1995.

"(It) looks at the trend, the actual authorization being attempted. It asks if this is a normal credit card transaction, a normal one this account holder would make," said Tim Samuelson, assistant vice president of card issuer services for CSG. "It looks at 50 variables to generate a score, if the score is high enough, it kicks out an alert report."

CSG has implemented a number of other card protection programs, including a cardholder verification program to prevent theft of cards from the mail.

Mr. Samuelson said that the biggest problem is staying ahead of criminals.

"The smarter we get, the smarter they get," he said.

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